Marimed Foundation helping around the world…

Now helping in Haiti   click to bypass history and jump to Haiti info

Mission

Marimed Foundation for Island Health Care Training was established in 1984 as a Hawai`i nonprofit organization to provide primary health care services and training to remote island communities in the former United States Trust Territories of the Pacific. In the 1990s, Marimed revised its mission to focus on behavioral health care services for adolescents and their families in Hawaii.  However, the Foundation continues to support special health care training missions to other island communities in times of crisis.

Micronesia

Marimed began with the vision of the founders, David Higgins, a Harvard educated lawyer and ship captain, and his wife, Dr. Ilona Higgins, a Board Certified Ob/Gyn, to design and build a sailing ship to attract financial resources, medical volunteers, and donated supplies to serve the outer atolls in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, site of the US nuclear testing in the 1950s. The ship would support a system of rural dispensaries on atolls without air strips, carrying volunteer heath professionals on regular “rounds” to train and support local health workers in their home communities.

From 1984 through 1986, Marimed staff and volunteers joined forces with Marshall Island Ministry of Health personnel initiating a series of clinics in the most isolated outer atoll communities.  These early clinics established trust and rapport between Marimed staff and their Marshallese counterparts and allowed the gathering of information needed to refine both program and vessel design. 

The Tole Mour (“gift of life and health”), a 156-foot top-sail schooner, was commissioned in Seattle in the fall of 1988. For the following four years, she made regular “medical rounds” in the outer Marshall Islands, serving 15,000 men, women, and children in 58 small communities on a dozen atolls.  In 1990, Marimed launched its Ocean Skills and Education Program for youth from both Hawai`i and the Marshall Islands. During the next two years, these youth accompanied and assisted Tole Mour’s health teams as they made their rounds of the outer Marshall Islands. At the same time, the need for innovative approaches to the challenge of treating and educating Hawai`i youth with behavioral problems was reaching crisis proportions. In 1992, the primary health care and education programs of the Foundation were turned over to the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health, which had by then  built dispensaries and airstrips on the atolls served by the ship. The Tole Mour came “home” to Hawai`i to refocus its energies on Hawai`i and on the youth development and behavioral heath programs initiated in 1990.

Hawai`i

Since 1993 Marimed has operated the Kailana Program for at-risk youth throughout Hawai`i, in addition to several other youth and adult programs.  Information about these programs can be found in other sections of this website.

Around the World

Over the years, Marimed has responded to natural disasters and health problems around the world. Mostly this has been through donations of equipment and supplies, transportation and logistics, or volunteer support in the Pacific.

Haiti

On January 12^th a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti causing widespread devastation, killing 200,000 people in the Port Au Prince area alone and leaving over 1 million men, women and children homeless. 

Dr. Higgins, Marimed’s Medical Director, understood that in the wake of this terrible destruction and loss of life, an ongoing disaster of epic proportions had only just begun. She made an initial trip to Haiti in late March to volunteer her services and to learn how the flood of international recovery efforts were going to translate into supporting indigenous health care providers as they continued to face a mounting disaster. 

In early October, Dr. Higgins returned to Haiti with a volunteer medical team of sixteen at the request of Dr. Yfto Mayette, the Medical Director at St. Nicholas Hospital in St. Marc’s, Haiti. The Marimed volunteer team stayed on site and worked hand in hand with the hospital’s medical staff providing primary health care services and developing plans with the hospital for further health services outreach to their community.

“It was a privilege to be invited back, but we still need financial help to support the community outreach efforts begun by the hospital. St. Nicholas Hospital has asked us to help them launch a cervical cancer prevention, screening and treatment pilot program, the first of its kind, to help save their women who are dying of cervical cancer in their 30's and 40's. We are applying to the Gardasil Access Program for 22,500 doses of HPV vaccine in order to immunize young girls before they become sexually active, and in May of 2011, we will be returning to help launch this effort and to provide initial training in the screening and treatment for women who have the disease. ”

If you would like to support Marimed’s medical team, please make your donation payable to:

"Marimed Foundation/Haiti Relief"

Address:  Marimed Foundation
                    Attn: Accounting Department (Donations)
                    45-021 Likeke Place
                    Kaneohe, HI  96744-2426

Please include your name, address and e-mail address on your check so that, in addition to acknowledging your gift, we may also e-mail you a photo journal detailing the work you helped make possible. 

HAITI VOLUNTEER SERVICE - SAINT NICHOLAS HOSPITAL, OCTOBER 2010